This invention relates to new and useful improvements in crop lifters, particularly lifters used on pulse type crop vines such as peas, lentils and the like.
Conventional lifters extend forwardly a considerable distance from the knife guards and although they may be satisfactory to lift certain types of crops, nevertheless when dealing with pulse crops, the tendency of such crops to shatter and shell makes it difficult to use such long lifters. Furthermore, with the header in a floating position, such lifters tend to vibrate the crops as they are lifted and the considerable distance that they have to be engaged by the lifters often results in damage occurring to the crop prior to the cutting action of the transverse knife assembly situated on the front edge of the header. There is less danger of bending the lifters of the present invention during turning.
The present device overcomes these disadvantages by providing a relatively short and close coupled crop lifter, the forward end of which is only relatively short distance in front of the knife guards. It is used primarily to lift pulse crops such as peas and lentils off the ground for swathing or combining and the lifters are bolted onto the header using one of the bolts which attaches the knife guards so that the lifter projects forwardly and downwardly to the ground. The lifters can, of course, be used on other types of crops.
The header may then be floated so that the crop lifter just rides on the ground and picks up the crop to get them over the knife assembly and onto the header with the minimum disturbance occurring prior to the knife assembly severing the plants.
By contrast, present devices, being relatively long, cause problems of control of the header with proper lifting of the crops and some such lifters catch on the crop, particularly when backing out of a wet spot. Furthermore, bending of conventional lifters is a problem when turning.